Craft Show in Suwon

Nan, my chilbo teacher, asked me on Wednesday to come to the craft show on Saturday.  All the shops on her street were going to have tables set up outside and were going to do demos.  It turned out that Rocketman had to go into work on Saturday so I thought I would hang out at the chilbo shop.  I got there at 10:30am which is when Nan wanted me to arrive to find no Nan.

I sat down and waited for Nan to return.  The lady at the next table was busy prepping for food.  She came over to me with this big bowl of rice cakes and fish cakes.  The rice cakes were stuck together in bricks.  She showed me how to pull them apart and walked away telling me to separate all the rice cakes.  It took me the better part of an hour to do this.  Nan showed up shortly after I started and laughed seeing me working.

You should have seen the looks I got from cars that drove by and people that walked by.  Many stopped and stared so surprised to see this foreigner ripping rice cakes apart.  While I was doing this, the lady began to make dukbokki.  I watched as she added each ingredient to a huge electric skillet.  Then she came over and grabbed a handful of rice cakes and fish cakes and threw it into the skillet.  Soon it looked like this.

Some government officials came by and were also surprised to see a foreigner.  I collected quite a few namecards (business cards) throughout the day.

They seemed to congregate in front of me which made others walking by stop to see what was going on.

Nan took this picture of me collecting 1000won (.90USD) for a cup of dukbokki.  I was given lots of toothpicks to help myself.  It was delicious.  Nice and spicy.

There was also a couple of bands that played.  I managed to video a few songs.  The guy in the black baseball hat sang Kim Bum Soo's "Bo go ship da" to me.  The guy on far left grabbed me and brought me to this bar.  They wanted me to drink but I had a coke.  I wasn't hungry but they really wanted me to eat so I had a few bites.  I stayed for a little bit then when back to the chilbo shop.

This was the badge that Nan made for me.  I also demoed some chilbo.  Kids could make chilbo keychain for 5000 WON (4USD).

A pottery artist came over and gave me this sculpture as a gift.  Do you wonder why I love it here so much?!!

I also bought this necklace for 18,000 won ($15USD).  The pendant is made with dried flowers.

Closeup of the pendant.  I left about 4:00pm and waited for Rocketman to return from work.  He was really tired after a stressful day and bummed he couldn't have gone with me.  It was super windy that day but at least it didn't rain so the day was a success.  Nan was so glad that I came and I hope she knows that I would do anything for her.

This first video is "Bo Go Ship Da":



This band was really good and sang in English.  I got quite a few videos of them.  If you watch the "Living La Vida Loca"  you will see a guy on stilts that was pretty hilarious.